San Diego to pay $7 million for bicycle accident in Old Town

SAN DIEGO — The city of San Diego has paid $7 million to the family of a cyclist who was seriously injured while riding on a shared bike path in Old Town.

Marc Woolf was riding his bike home from his job at the San Diego Zoo when a car backed into the street on Congress Street in Old Town. Woolf crashed into the car and was thrown from his bike into oncoming traffic, where he was hit by a second car.

According to a 2022 civil lawsuit, Woolf was paralyzed from the neck down as a result of the accident. He later died of sepsis 17 months after the accident.

“He went from this young man who was excited to be a grandfather to now a tortured man. He essentially experienced a slow death and I wouldn't wish that on anyone. “I wouldn't wish that on my worst enemy,” said Woolf's daughter Denice Simmons.

“He didn’t want anyone else to go through what he went through,” she added.

Both drivers involved were obeying the speed limit, the complaint states. The accident was caused by “dangerous road conditions,” including:

• Restricted property boundaries and distances due to physical conditions
• Inadequate red curb prohibiting parked cars
• Overgrown vegetation
• Confusing and misleading shared lane markings
• An improperly maintained lighting system that was not working on the night of the incident

The broken streetlight, in addition to the myriad alleged defects, contributed to the car and Woolf “not being able to see each other until it was too late,” the complaint says.

As a result of this lawsuit, among other changes, the city has now expanded the red zone along Congress to prevent parked cars from blocking visual corridors along the street.

“It’s a step in the right direction,” said attorney Joseph Dicks of Dicks & Workman, part of the family’s legal team. “It shows their willingness to listen, and we hope they will continue to listen.”

Simmons hopes these changes will help prevent another catastrophic accident like the one that changed her family forever.

“It makes me feel like I'm fulfilling what my dad wanted to see, what my dad wanted to see, and that we're seeing a safer street here in Old Town,” Simmons told CBS 8.

The San Diego City Attorney's Office did not respond to our request for comment.

Cases like Woolf's are not uncommon in San Diego. Earlier this year, the city agreed to pay nearly $3 million to the family of a man who died after hitting a city truck parked in the bike path. In 2017, a San Diego cyclist received $4.8 million in compensation after he fell on an uneven sidewalk in the Del Cerro neighborhood and suffered serious head and spinal injuries.

Dangerous road conditions also paved the way for a cyclist to receive an unprecedented $23.75 million payout after a man was paralyzed in a DUI crash on Fiesta Island. He said the city has failed to make the road safe for cyclists.